Synopsis: Bianca is 26 and works
in a hotel in Germany and is so short (1.49) that her mother nicknamed her
Bica, which refers to a ristretto coffee in Portuguese. Like the one her mom,
Maria, used to prepare: she came from Portugal and knew the secret recipe of
the best coffee in the world but could also understand human nature by the way
in which they drink their coffee. Maria has been dead for 13 days but Bica
keeps on hearing her voice. And she's not exactly thrilled to be dead and is
sitting on the read couch, giving her daughter precious tips on happiness. Bica
really needs them, because she's looking for True Love (even if her heart keeps
on beating for Galão, rude, arrogant and married), but she wants a baby at all
costs, otherwise her mother can't go away. A Portuguese legend says that if
your parents died without you giving them a grandchild, they won't go to
Heaven. That's the reason why Bica, when rearranging the rooms, breaks all the
condoms she finds: you never know… But, even if she's happy of the mysterious
comeback of her mother, Bica is also worried: there is a secret Maria does not
have to discover, a secret about her death…

A captivating title which, in
Italian, sounds like this The small
goddess of fertility and a unique plot picked immediately my curiosity. A short
girl, Bica, 26 years old, goes around the hotel where she works breaking
condoms and talking to her dead mom, while remembering her past and wondering
about her future. Oh, and did I mention that they talk a lot about coffee?

I would have some difficulties if I
had to tell you the plot, because there isn't really a plot, so to speak, there
is just a thread to follow. The story starts with Bica, who works in a small
hotel run by an important family, whose mother is dead. Too bad that the mother
comes back home like nothing had happened, without knowing she's dead and
thinking she's just sick. Bica tries to hide her the truth and in the meantime
we learn about her nomadic past, with a mom always travelling around, jumping
from one man to another, after the big delusion of Bica's dad. The past melts
with the present, where Bica is dealing with an unrequited love and complex
relationships.

I think that I basically liked the
book, even if I had some problems while reading it and it took me longer than
usual to finish it. The writing is not really that simple, with different
temporal narrations, flashbacks hard to understand that confused me and a story
that tends to be a bit surreal at times. The changing POVs also were a bit of a
problem and took me a while to get used to it. These things did influence my
reading.

However, Bica is a very non
conventional protagonist; it's hard to relate to her, but she's kind of cute,
with her weird attitude and strange behaviour, her height that is so
problematic and her quirk to know what every person drinks. She is the one that
shines the most during the novel, stealing the scene to all the other ones.

I would define the story as weird. It's
not really a comedy or a love story, just a tale with many sides. Entertaining,
but not too much.

Identikit

I'm affected by an illness which makes me read and read and read. I started loving books when I was a little child and never stopped. Thrillers, young adult, contemporary fiction, classic novels, fantasy, chick-it...BRING IT ON!